Drumsticks for percussionists have traditionally been most often made from wood, usually a hardwood such as American hickory which is straight grained and readily shaped. Usually a rod of the wood is turned to produce the desired shape, the wood is smoothed if necessary, and then coated with a finish. Although wood sticks have been used for many years, and have been found satisfactory, they have some drawbacks, such as a tendency to break along the grain. Therefore improved drumsticks are needed.
Thermoplastics have been thought of for drumsticks, but the stiffness and other properties of most thermoplastics are too low to afford good drumsticks. Recently [see Modern Plastics, vol. 76, No. 10, p. 41 (October 1999)] it has been reported that oriented polymers, such as oriented polypropylene, can be used for drumsticks, but these sticks are relatively expensive to form, requiring one or more orientation steps, then turning (much as in making wood drumsticks) to form the final shape. This manufacturing process does not allow for taking advantage of some of properties of thermoplastics, such as inexpensive and easy formability. Drumsticks which are made from ITPs or TSRs and RAs, having certain physical properties, may be simply melt formed, as by injection molding for ITPs and reaction injection molding for TSRs, and have the requisite properties for drumsticks without further processing.